Course Description

Lectures, Recordings, and Slides

Lectures for this course are scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays (except in the cases of holidays and holiday-related changes to the Tufts Academic Calendar) from 4:30 – 5:45 pm. All classes will be broadcast at https://tufts.zoom.us/my/dbarch. When classes are held in person, they will be in Robinson 253 and on Zoom.

Recordings of each class will be posted to the Media Gallery on Canvas and available within 1 – 2 days. Lecture slides will be available prior to each class in the Modules section on the course Canvas page.

Lab Sections

Labs meet in Room 109 (Computer Lab) of the Psychology Building. Your teaching assistants will provide zoom links for virtual attendance.

Overview

This is designed to be a first course in statistics with a focus on applications in the behavioral sciences. In this course, we will discuss some of the most essential statistical methods that used to perform and interpret research in the behavioral sciences. We will also discuss principles of probability and inference and their importance in psychological research and beyond. Finally, we will build laboratory skills by using statistical software to analyze and interpret data.

Teaching Team


Professor


Dan Barch

Student Hours:

Monday and Wednesday 6:30 – 7:30 pm

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/my/dbarch

email:


Teaching Assistants


Graduate Assistants

Paige Hickey

Lab Sections:

A: Thursday 1:30 – 2:45 pm

B: Thursday 2:45 – 4:00 pm

Student Hours:

Monday and Wednesday 11 am – 12 pm

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/j/99303669747?pwd=QkdUVzJQZVVYdlF5TmI0bDExVy84UT09

email:

Ashlynn Keller

Lab Sections:

D: Thursday 7:45 – 9:00 pm

F: Friday 10:15 – 11:30 am

Student Hours:

Monday and Tuesday 11:00am – 12:00 pm or by appointment

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/j/92920897844?pwd=a2dVMzZLOTh3STdNZS95WmRqUUJodz09

email:

McKinzey Torrance

Lab Sections:

C: Thursday 6:30 – 7:45 pm

E: Friday 9:00 – 10:15 am

Student Hours:

Wednesday 2 – 4 pm

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/j/6556751308

email:


Undergraduate Assistants

Maycon Santos

Lab Sections:

B: Thursday 2:45 – 4:00 pm

F: Friday 10:15 – 11:30 am

Student Hours:

Wednesday 10 – 11 am and Friday 3 – 4 pm

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/j/2914684073

email:


Brandy Rasche

Lab Sections:

C: Thursday 6:30 – 7:45 pm

D: Thursday 7:45 – 9:00 pm

Student Hours:

Monday 6:00 – 7:00 pm and Tuesday 10:00 – 11:00 am

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/my/brandyraschetufts

email:


JoJo Zhang

Lab Sections:

A: Thursday 1:30 – 2:45 pm

E: Friday 9:00 – 10:15 am

Student Hours:

Tuesday 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Zoom:

https://tufts.zoom.us/my/jojozhang

email:


Course requirements

Quizzes:

There will be three quizzes during the session. The quizzes are semi-cumulative: each will focus on separate content, but some concepts will apply to topics throughout the course. You may use calculators, statistical software, your notes, corrected homework assignments, and/or lab assignments during the quiz. Please complete the quizzes on your own: consulting other students and/or internet sources for answers will not provide an accurate assessment of your learning (and it’s, you know, cheating).

Homework

Each week, you will receive a problem set designed to give you practice and help you master the concepts discussed in class.

Lab work

Throughout the course we will be using statistical software to evaluate data. During class, you will be given problem sets to help build those skills.

Accomodations

I will make all efforts to comply with any and all accommodations. In addition, here is the University’s stated policy:

“Tufts University values the diversity of our students, staff, and faculty, recognizing the important contribution each student makes to our unique community. Students with disabilities are assured that the Student Accessibility Services office will work with each student individually to ensure access to all aspects of student life. Tufts is committed to providing equal access and support to all students through the provision of reasonable accommodations so that each student may access their curricula and achieve their personal and academic potential. If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodations please contact the Student Accessibility Services office at 617-627-4539, or through their email at to make an appointment to determine appropriate accommodations. Please be aware that accommodations cannot be enacted retroactively, making timeliness a critical aspect for their provision.”

Plagiarism (bad)

Look, I shouldn’t have to tell you not to cheat and I think it rather insulting of you for me to do so. The policy for this course is: if there is evidence that a student has passed off the work of others as their own, no credit will be given. Also, I am required by University bylaws to report any incidents of “plagiarism, cheating, or other forms of student academic misconduct” to the Student Affairs Office, and those cases will be adjudicated through the Student Judicial Process.

If you are having difficulty completing your work, please reach out to the teaching team. We are more than happy to help and we would much rather work our way to a solution together than for you to jeopardize your academic integrity.

Grading System

Quizzes: 30%

Homework: 30%

Final Exam: 20%

Lab Work: 20%

Grade Definitions
A+: 98 – 100% A: 93 – 97% A-: 90 – 92%
B+: 87 – 89% B: 83 – 86% B-: 80 – 82%
C+: 77 – 79% C: 73 – 76% C-: 70 – 72%
D+: 67 – 69% D: 63 – 66% D-: 60 – 62%
F: 0 – 59%

Late Work and Lab Attendance

The teaching team understands that hardship and disruption are likely to be more common this semester than in years past (and, hopefully, years future). There will be no penalty for late work. We ask only two things:

  1. Please be respectful of the workload of the teaching team: the due dates are meant both to keep you on track and also so that the work of assessing assignments is spread out for your teaching assistants.

  2. If you anticipate being unable to turn in an assignment on or before the due date, please give your teaching assistants notice when possible.

If, in any given week, you cannot attend the lab section in which you are enrolled either virtually or in person, please contact your teaching assistants as soon as possible to arrange making up your work. Please do not attend a different lab section, as doing so tends to lead to logistical difficulties for the teaching team.

Grading policy

If, at any point, you have a question about how your work was assessed, you may ask your teaching assistant for clarification. If there is a dispute regarding how work was assessed across different lab sections, please contact me directly.

Course Schedule

Day Agenda Assignment
Week 1: January 17 - January 21
Wednesday Course Introduction No Homework
Lab No Labs This Week
Week 2: January 24 - January 28
Monday Statistics and Parameters Homework 1
Wednesday Types of Statistics
Lab Introduction to Programming in R
Week 3: January 31 - February 4
Monday Visual Displays of Data Homework 2
Wednesday Introduction to Probability Theory
Lab Data Visualization
Week 4: February 7 - February 11
Monday Odds Homework 3
Wednesday Conditional Probability
Lab Probability Problems
Week 5: February 14 - February 18 Quiz Week
Monday The Normal Distribution Homework 4 & Quiz 1
Wednesday Binomial Probability
Lab Probability Distributions
Week 6: February 21 - February 25
Monday No Class – Presidents’ Day Homework 5
Wednesday Hypothesis Testing with the Binomial Part I
Thursday Hypothesis Testing with the Binomial Part II
Lab No Labs This Week
Week 7: February 28 - March 4
Monday Confidence Intervals with Proportions Homework 6
Wednesday The \(\chi^2\) Test of Statistical Independence
Lab Binomial Tests and Confidence Intervals
Week 8: March 7 - March 11 Quiz Week
Monday Assumptions of Parametric Tests Homework 7 & Quiz 2
Wednesday Correlation
Lab Scatterplots
Week 9: March 14 - March 18
Monday Regression Homework 8
Wednesday The \(t\) Distribution and One Sample \(t\)-tests
Lab Sampling Distributions
SPRING BREAK: March 21 - March 25
No Classes
Week 10: March 28 - April 1
Monday Repeated-measures \(t\)-tests Homework 9
Wednesday Independent-samples \(t\)-tests
Lab \(t\)-tests
Week 11: April 4 - April 8
Monday Confidence Intervals with the \(t\) Distribution Homework 10
Wednesday Make-up Day: No Class
Lab No Labs This Week
Week 12: April 11 - April 15 Quiz Week
Monday Effect Size and Power Homework 11 & Quiz 3
Wednesday Independent-samples ANOVA
Lab ANOVA in R Part I
Week 13: April 18 - April 22
Monday No Class: Patriots’ Day Homework 12
Wednesday Effect Size and Post-Hoc Tests with ANOVA
Friday Repeated-measures ANOVA
Lab No Labs This Week
Week 14: April 25 - April 29
Monday Factorial ANOVA Homework 13
Wednesday Conclusion
Lab ANOVA in R Part II/Review
End-of-Semester: May 2 – May 13
Monday Course Review
Friday, May 6th - Friday, May 13th Final Exam

Note: All dates are subject to change

Final Exam

The final exam will be available on Canvas from Friday, May 6th – Friday, May 13th.

The final exam will be cumulative and will comprise a combination of multiple-choice, true/false, and short-numerical-answer questions.

Psychology Department Mission Statement

Preparing undergraduate and graduate students to ask and answer science-based questions about human and animal behavior by introducing students to the data, theories, and research methods from different fields of psychology – biological, clinical, cognitive, developmental, and social.

Upon completing a degree in psychology there are 10 goals/skills that have been delineated. Psychology 12 will help undergraduate students to achieve the following skills from the list identified by the Department:

  • Understand core psychological concepts and processes such as evidence, hypothetical constructs, operational definitions, and inferences.

  • Gain an understanding of basic quantitative and analytic methods used for scientific investigation in psychology. This involves learning the assumptions and use of these basic statistical analyses: probability, tests of frequency, correlation, t-tests, ANOVA

  • Develop oral and visual communication skills for reporting empirical research findings

  • Develop writing, graphic, and verbal skills to communicate empirical data in an appropriate scientific format (typically APA format)